


(don't you dare) End up Like Me

by Jordan_Marine



Category: Blood of Eden Series - Julie Kagawa
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Depersonalization Disorder, Gen, He doesn't want it either, Jackal has Empathy but doesn't know it, Jackal-centric, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23813374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jordan_Marine/pseuds/Jordan_Marine
Summary: "At least if Jackal was as far gone as Sarren was, he wouldn’t catch himself thinking 'the world probably would be better off if humans weren’t on it, they’re really no better than rabbids' and feel the subsequent horror that he was thinking like a batshit crazy vampire. He’d just get to be the batshit crazy vampire and stop having headaches. Why didn’t Kanin warn James— him— about headaches, again?Oh right: Kanin didn’t have headaches anymore, because sane vampires didn’t get headaches."Or:During their hike to Eden, Jackal manages to reflect on his particular brand of insanity, and decides he'd rather not have it be contagious.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 15





	(don't you dare) End up Like Me

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I'm writing for another fandom, it's like a curtain has been pulled back and there's an entire realm of possibility, where I can freely galavant and rub my sticky fingers over another one of JKag's universes—
> 
> Ahem. 
> 
> Blood of Eden needs more fanfictions. I needed to work on a new writing style. This emerged. You're welcome, I guess.
> 
> Update: As of May 11th, I edited. I'm not supposed to edit things once I post them, but I did anyway, because this is who I am as a person. It's better now.

Most of the time, Jackal wanted to scream.

The worst part about living with himself, he decided, was that he ended up envying both Allison, who was perfectly sound of mind, and Sarren, who was so absolutely batshit that he had lost all grip on reality, so he didn’t really have to _care_. Because Jackal was insane. He knew he was, and had accepted that fact a long time ago. Not because of his bloodlust that came with being a vampire, or because he couldn’t care less about human lives when they were so fragile and short and really not worth getting invested in. No. Regardless of what his present company thought, that didn’t make him crazy. That just made him a good vampire. 

What made him crazy was that sane people didn’t figure out that vampires didn’t actually have to follow the call of the sun, so long as they jammed a piece of metal in their hand and focused on the pain rather than the exhaustion. Sane people weren’t afraid of mirrors, because they could look in one and not see a stranger staring back at them. Sane people didn’t question whether or not they were actually real every other week.

Sane people didn’t remember the time before they were turned as if they were memories of a completely different person. Like it was all a story they had made up. 

Usually he could ignore that last part. As the raider king, he didn’t have any attachments to the part of life where he was human, so he rarely thought about it. For all he cared, those first nineteen years of life didn’t actually exist. But then he found Kanin, and he kept calling him _James_ and Jackal kept forgetting that, _oh right, James Tran was a real human who other people knew and I was that human and therefore I am James Tran._ He was glad that Kanin kept taking Jackal’s brushing off that name as disdain for it, because sane people didn’t completely detach themselves from the first nineteen years of their life and repeatedly forget that when Kanin said the name _James,_ he was talking to Jackal. Because James had been real. And James had been him.

So yeah. He was definitely crazy. But he wasn’t completely off the walls, either, so he was perfectly aware of his actions, consequences, and this annoying thing called _self-preservation_ that only half of their merry group seemed to have. That half being him and Allison Sekemoto, which was unfortunate, because she was so _painfully_ naive, and he was…

The only vampire he had met who was crazier than he was happened to be Sarren, and that _sucked,_ because it was a very low bar to have.

Or, maybe there was one other who would end up even more batshit than Jackal, marking him the third craziest person he knew. Depending on how much Jackal did (or didn’t) do, and how much Kanin and Allie didn’t (or did) do.

Because, at the moment, Jackal’s ever-present urge to scream was stemming from watching Ezekiel Crosse struggle not to fly off the rails. And Jackal was sane enough to grip actions and consequences, and crazy enough not to know how to _do anything about them._

From a glance, the new human-turned-childing-turned-vampire was holding up excellently, considering his situation. He had only tried to kill himself once. For human standards that was less-than stellar, but Jackal had never met a vampire who hadn’t been suicidal at one point or another, including himself. He was a bit reclusive, a bit cold towards Allison (and he was _not_ angry on her behalf, because she could fight that battle by herself, and just because he called her sister didn’t mean she was _actually_ his sister, he remembered James’ sister and they didn’t behave the same way—)

(He was James. Right.)

Jackal knew better than to think that Ezekiel was holding up in any capacity, though, because he knew apathy (personally), and he knew what distancing himself from his previous family and life and memories did to someone. (James’ family and his life and his memories, not Jackal’s, not anymore.)

(Was that family even real? If someone died and no one remembered them, did they ever exist at all?) 

He knew what it did. And he knew that _Kanin_ knew what it did, too, and was doing nothing, because he failed James (Jackal? His time with Kanin was blurry-not-blurry and made his head hurt to think about) and was apparently _scared_ to approach Ezekiel in case he failed again, like a coward. And Jackal couldn’t even begin to help, because if he could fix this then he would’ve fixed himself by now. And Allison was clueless, because she didn’t know the signs, and Jackal wasn’t about to tell her, because that would mean telling her how he knew about those things. He wasn’t going to trust anyone that much, thank you very much. He was on thin enough ice with everyone _without_ them knowing he was crazy.

(Once upon a time, Kanin told him that thoughts like that were paranoia. Now, Jackal knew better than to listen to Kanin about things like that.)

So he wanted to scream. A lot. At least if he was as crazy as Sarren, he wouldn’t have a grip on things like reality, and consequences, and just enough compassion left in his body that he did _not_ want Ezekiel Crosse to end up like him.

Don’t get him wrong, if Ezekiel Crosse wanted to go homicidal so Jackal could get some small amount of camaraderie, that would be great, but he’d very much like for no one else to have memories of a (naive, hopeful, oh god, James had been too _young,_ Jackal felt so _sorry_ for him) real-not-real kid floating around their head, because it was _horrible._ Jackal didn’t want James’ memories if he didn’t get to still be James. If Ezekiel was going to go insane, Jackal would much rather he go completely crazy and try to kill all of them, because that was much easier and slightly more interesting. 

(At least if Jackal was as far gone as Sarren was, he wouldn’t catch himself thinking _the world probably would be better off if humans weren’t on it, they’re really no better than rabids_ and feel the subsequent horror that he was thinking like a batshit crazy vampire. He’d just get to be the batshit crazy vampire and stop having headaches. Why didn’t Kanin warn James— him— about headaches, again?)

(Kanin didn’t have headaches anymore, because sane vampires didn’t get headaches.)

“Are you going to _do anything_ about the puppy?” he asked Kanin once night. He didn’t like having conversations out in the open where anyone could overhear (which _wasn’t_ paranoia, he wasn’t paranoid, just smart about what information left his mouth), but they were walking ahead of Allie and Zeke and the wind was blowing in their favor. If both of them kept their voices down, no one would be any the wiser. 

“Nothing can be done until he accepts what he is. You cannot help someone who refuses aid.”

“That’s bullshit!” he hissed. “Allie has no idea what she’s dealing with, Zeke can’t exactly fix himself, so that leaves _you._ It’s like you’re inviting him to— to—”

Kanin stared down at him, dark eyes glinting in the moonlight, looking _insufferably calm_ . Jackal glared like, if he looked angry enough, it would fix the fact that Kanin had stabbed James-Jackal-James ( _ow,_ his _head—_ ) when he realized he had made a monster instead of trying to help him, and was too scared to try the experiment again.

“I’d almost think you care about him,” Kanin responded.

“We need as many people as possible to stop Sarren, and if Zeke goes crazy and dies, Allison’s going to implode. Again. Just because I don’t have a singular redeeming quality doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. So _help him._ ”

Kanin was silent.

“Right,” Jackal snorted and rolled his eyes. “I forgot. You only help people who aren’t _messy._ You just dispose of everyone else. Maybe Sarren and I can get a club together: _deemed unworthy of life by Kanin_ support group. Meetings on the new moon, bring your own blood bag.”

“I have thought over your situation many times in the past fifteen years, James,” Kanin said quietly, and Jackal bit back the snap of _I’m not James,_ because Kanin didn’t know and Jackal wouldn’t tell him in a thousand years. “I’m not an idiot. I see the apathy and the forceful disconnect from his past. I know that you experienced the same thing, when adjusting to being a vampire. But you’ve always been... cold-hearted, in a way. Even when you were a human. He won’t turn down the path you did.”

“I’m not worried he’ll take my place as raider king.” Jackal snapped, and tried to shove down his homicidal urges, because Jackal didn’t feel like James, but he still knew him better than Kanin ever would, and he was sick of Kanin making assumptions about who he was and who James had been. “I’m worried that he’s going to drive himself insane, and then he’ll be useless and break Allison’s heart for a second time. You still care about _her_ , at least, don’t you?”

Kanin’s stare was more weary than Jackal was used to.

“You’ve changed,” he stated, and Jackal bit back the response _yeah, no shit._ “I cannot help what I don’t _understand,_ so I cannot give aid to Ezekiel. But... you might be able to in a way neither Allison nor I can.”

That made Jackal stop. As in, Actually _stop walking._

“What the _fuck_ do you mean?” he yelled, loud enough for everyone in their group to hear him, before he ran back to Kanin’s side, uncaring that Allie and Ezekiel were now looking at them strangely. The wind was still in their favor. He’d make sure neither of them tried to listen in.

“Why am I, the homicidal raider king, the best person for this job? If I had any way to fix his situation, don’t you think I would’ve fixed my situation fifteen years ago and maybe, just maybe, _not_ been like this? Believe it or not, I didn’t wake up one day and decide to—” _Kanin doesn’t know, dammit_ “—make an army out of the people who murdered my family.” Not his family. They felt even less real than James felt, because at least Kanin had _met_ him, if only briefly before James was Jackal and James and both and separate— 

Kanin gave him another look, and Jackal _hated_ those looks, because they’d be so much less effective if Kanin wasn’t over three inches taller than him, and he was still allowed to be petty about stupid things. It was much easier than trying to ignore his headache long enough to sort out exactly when his memories started to be starkly _fake_.

“Is there something about yourself you’re not telling me?” he asked. Jackal growled. “It feels that we’re trying to solve different issues.”

Jackal really, _really_ wanted to scream.

*

Two days later, he got to. 

Sarren set a trap for them, and Jackal didn’t stop Allison’s bleeding heart from opening that stupid van, and Ezekiel couldn’t be apathetic anymore. And Jackal remembered when Jackal-James-Jackal (god, he was going to kill everyone when this was done just so he wouldn’t have to figure that mess out) had slipped out of apathy and wanted to kill and kill and _kill_ the bandits that took his family from him, and Ezekiel wanted to kill himself, but there wasn’t much of a difference because someone would still end up dead.

So he screamed. A lot. He didn’t remember exactly what he had said, because it didn’t quite feel like it was _him_ screaming, more like he was watching a story unfold when he had no real part in it. And Ezekiel wasn’t allowed to slip back into apathy because someone who was supposed to be him screamed at Allison too, and then the two of them were gone, and Kanin sat beside him as he kept screaming, turning more and more incoherent as the night went on.

He was pretty sure he had wanted to let everything spill, in that moment. About how he wasn’t James, not in any way that mattered, and how horrible he felt for this kid who wasn’t real anymore (or maybe, in this moment, it was Jackal who wasn’t real), because James hadn’t deserved what had happened, the same way that Zeke hadn’t deserved it, either. About how he wanted to be properly insane because then he wouldn’t have to _care_ about how little he cared about everyone he killed and every dead family member James left behind, and he wouldn’t have to wonder about how fucked up that made him.

He wanted to talk about how James’ grief had destroyed him from the inside out, and Jackal didn’t feel real anymore, because “Jackal” was just the scraps of whatever remained.

He didn’t say anything about that. He wiped his eyes, even though he hadn’t been crying, and ignored the fact that Kanin had listened to him scream incoherently for several minutes.

“Sane people don’t do that,” he muttered to himself before looking at Kanin and refusing to be apologetic about his outburst. So he was crazy. Kanin should’ve known that for a while, if he had actually decided to pay attention. “So did I pass? Did I fix what you were too afraid to even _touch,_ in case you sullied yourself with another broken thing?”

“Time will tell,” Kanin said calmly, and Jackal wanted to embed his ax in his neck. “You seem to have broken his spell, for now. I can only hope that Allison can take it from here.”

“Right. Allison. The one who has no idea what she’s doing,” Jackal said. “I’ll save Ezekiel a spot in Sarren and mine’s support group. Maybe he’ll be more amusing once he goes off the deep end.” Jackal was sorely lacking in insane friends. Maybe he _should’ve_ joined Sarren. He’d probably cause less headaches.

Kanin let out a long, purposeful breath, which Jackal knew he was supposed to hear, because vampires didn’t let out breaths unintentionally.

“I told you that I’ve thought about you, in the past fifteen years,” Kanin said, standing. Jackal fought off a groan and stood as well. “I don’t think you’re a lost cause, _Jackal.”_

And Jackal hated _that,_ because hearing the name that he registered as _his_ from his sire’s mouth felt way too validating.

“Could’ve fooled me when you _literally_ stabbed me in the back. Y’know. When I was kneeling on the ground and not looking at you, because I trusted you.” _Laughing hysterically, covered in blood, wanting to vomit, couldn’t understand a word you were saying, that was really a horrible night for everyone involved._

“I have spent much of my time thinking of what I could’ve done differently. I know now that I was wrong to leave you when you were…”

“Inconvenient?”

“Lost.”

Jackal snorted. “I don’t need your pity. It’s condescending. And I didn’t need to see the error of my ways about my raider army, either, or learn that humans were just as good as vampires, because I stand by the fact that they _aren’t,_ and that killing them when they’re twenty or eighty doesn’t make a fucking difference. They’re all just meat.” _And caring is way too dangerous. Look at what it did to your favorite child._

He expected Kanin to start lecturing him, like he was still a nineteen-year-old who was whole and _there_ and not crazy-not-crazy. He used to listen to those lectures. Now, whenever Kanin started, he’d start being not-him, like he was watching, or like nothing was real (Because if James wasn’t real and Jackal was just the fractured pieces of James that managed to survive, then what the hell _was_ he?), and that was always annoying because some part of him thought he was finally going properly crazy, but it never lasted long enough for him to stop caring about his sanity and lack thereof.

Kanin didn’t lecture him. Jackal didn’t trust that particular reaction.

“What do you need, then?” he asked.

“What?”

“You’re afraid of Ezekiel ending up like you. There’s something about you that you don’t want him to imitate, and that you haven’t told me about. What do you need, for you to put that part of you to rest?”

And that… hurt. Because Jackal wasn’t an idiot, and he knew that Kanin’s offer was fifteen years too late. James had needed his family— his sister, his brother, his parents— and when they died, he had needed Kanin in a way Kanin wouldn’t-couldn’t be there. And then he was James-Jackal-a _fucking headache_ is what he was, and the heachache hadn’t gone away ever since he had started tracking down Kanin so he’d stop having _nightmares,_ and suddenly he couldn’t stop thinking about where his memories stopped being his, and how James was so _real_ to Kanin in every way he _wasn’t_ to Jackal, and that was so unfair, because he _was James, dammit, why couldn’t he remember that in a way that mattered?_ James had needed Kanin more than anything, and Jackal had needed Kanin when he was newly turned and still truly remembered being James, and Kanin was trying to be better now that Jackal _didn’t need him._

“I need you to keep Ezekiel in his own head,” he said, because he could kill without a second thought, but he was _not_ going to let Ezekiel turn out like him. “Because no matter what Allison tells him, if people aren’t careful he’s going to turn out in a way that you and Allison and I don’t want. And I need you to…” 

He didn’t need anything from Kanin. Not anymore. But he did want some things. He wanted to be told point-blank that he was real. He wanted a solution to the days where he was locked out of the world and his own body. He wanted Kanin to admit that he had been wrong to give up on James-Jackal-(why did it still _hurt_ )so easily.

He wanted to be told that he could be fixed.

“Look. It’s been a weird night all around,” Jackal forced himself to say with a voice that wasn’t his, because it wasn’t like this body actually belonged to him. “Just let me sleep.” 

(Like he would wake up and be different.)

(Like he could wake up and stop wanting to scream.)

*

Jackal dug himself a shallow grave and stabbed a piece of metal into his hand, because he wasn’t going to let anyone dig him up and kill him during the day (because if he could feel pain then he was real, right?). He tried not to think about Ezekiel, or Kanin, or Allie, or James Tran. His headache didn’t subside, wrapping around his skull like barbed wire.

When it came time to dig himself out of the ground, he met the night with a cocky smirk and a casual gait. He and Kanin didn’t talk about last night as they found a half functional car covered in weeds. Jackal set to work checking everything under the hood and replacing the busted tire, making sure to snark at Allie and Ezekiel for being late and Kanin for not helping him fix the car. Ezekiel threatened him, and it was a real threat, and Jackal didn’t tell anyone how relieved he was. And jealous, too, that Ezekiel got to keep being Ezekiel, and Jackal was nothing that mattered.

They continued their journey to Eden by car.

He wanted to scream.

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:
> 
> I don't like using the word "insane" or "crazy" in real life, but in fiction, it's sometimes necessary. Jackal was born in a post-apocalypse world and had no explanation of what was happening to him, so he calls himself crazy. He actually is just going through really, really intense depersonalization, because it's not traumatizing if it happened to someone else. I don't know if this is my official headcanon about him, but it was good practice to explore.
> 
> Also. I do love Kanin. I really do. But this was written in Jackal's perspective, and I stand by the fact that past-Kanin handled his traumatized-murder-son horribly.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Can you even find the one who dyed his red heart to black?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24539566) by Anonymous 




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